The Oilers have hired Wayne Fleming - last seen as the head coach of Avangard Omsk of the KHL (far right in the video above) - as an assistant to Pat Quinn.

Fleming, like virtually everyone who Steve Tambellini has hired since being named Oilers’ GM, has had extensive experience with Hockey Canada. Fleming served as the GM (and assistant coach) of Canada’s National Olympic Program from 1990-92. Under his watch, the Canadians won silver at the 1992 Olympics. The Canadian team featured (among others) former Dallas coach Dave Tippett, while current Oiler Nikolai Khabibulin was the third goaltender for the gold-medal winning Russians. Fleming also served as Team Canada’s head coach at the 2001 and 2002 World Championships (he coached Steve Staios at the latter event), and as an associate coach at the 2002 and 2006 Olympics and the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.

Outside of his work with Hockey Canada, Fleming’s had an incredibly diverse career as a coach. He spent nine seasons as head coach of the University of Manitoba Bisons (he was an assistant coach and player before that) before joining Hockey Canada, and during those nine seasons he won two championships. After his time with the Bisons and his first stint with Hockey Canada, Fleming took a job coaching Leksands in the Swedish Elite League, a position he held for four seasons. He also coached in Switzerland and Germany before taking a job as an assistant to Islanders head coach Rick Bowness in 1997-98. He lasted two seasons, and worked with three head coaches: Bowness, Mike Milbury, and Bill Stewart. Oilers’ defenseman Jason Strudwick played some games for the 1997-98 team.

During his time with the Islanders, Fleming was responsible for coaching the powerplay. Over his two seasons with the team, the Islanders ranked 10th and 13th in the NHL in PP%; in overall scoring they ranked 16th and 22nd. It seems safe to say that Fleming got the job done. Fleming’s time on the Island ended with the promotion of Stewart to head coach; Stewart’s first move was to move Fleming into scouting.

After two years, Fleming was hired as an assistant coach to Bob Francis in Phoenix (future Bruins’ coach Mike Sullivan was on the roster) then. He left the Coyotes to work for Hockey Canada, before returning to the NHL. His next job was in Philadelphia, where he spent three seasons as an assistant to Ken Hitchcock (Hitchcock had previously worked with Fleming at the 2002 Olympics). During the NHL lockout, Fleming considered a position in Switzerland, and his agent talked a little bit about why HC Bern wanted to hire him:

"Wayne is a kind of hockey god overseas. He spent a lot of time in Europe. He is considered a teacher over there, not a yeller. They really like people like him."

After resigning in Philadelphia, Fleming joined Jim Playfair’s staff in Calgary in time for the 2006-07 season, and worked for both Playfair and Mike Keenan. He resigned his position in Calgary to make the jump to the KHL after being recruited by Jaromir Jagr.

Last year, Fleming was the head coach for Avangard Omsk, and things went badly. Rangers prospect Alexei Cherepanov died in October because of a heart condition, and ex-NHL’er John Grahame was released by the club because of alleged off-ice issues (Grahame denies the team’s allegations). In early January, Fleming was fired mid-game, but then asked to return; he stayed on until the end of the month before resigning.

All things considered, I’m a fan of this move: from everything I’ve read, Fleming brings in experience on special teams, he’s done a ton of video work (and with the Oilers video coach being shown the door, it’s a good bet he’ll be doing it again) and he’s worked extensively with younger players. It's also worth noting that Fleming's departure from Phoenix, Philadelphia and Calgary was on his own terms - he wasn't fired but instead chose to move on. He’ll be a nice addition to an already loaded coaching staff.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

How many candidates said "no thanks" to the Oil offer before they got somebody to say "....mmmm.... well...ok... I guess so..." When somebody gets hired this late in the summer, just before camp, I would have to assume that their first ten choices said "... I don't think I want to work for Kevin Lowe.."

For a gent that has been around(He's been everywhere)
I have admit, I have never heard of him.

Thanks for the quick snap shot, JW.

For what it is worth, I think that Tambo
has done a great rebuild job, with the club.

First rule of business, is to surround yourself,
with quality people.Quinn. Renney. Fleming. Buchberger.

The team on the ice might not have shaken out the way
we had hoped it would over this summer, but with the
improvement to the farm club, and smart hockey people
that are now at the helm, of our club....
Give them a chance to mold the club,
Give them what... 3 years ?

How many candidates said “no thanks” to the Oil offer before they got somebody to say “….mmmm…. well…ok… I guess so…” When somebody gets hired this late in the summer, just before camp, I would have to assume that their first ten choices said “… I don’t think I want to work for Kevin Lowe..”

I think you totally misunderstand how rare these opportunities are. There are bout 1/5 as many coaches in the NHL as players. You simply don't turn down an opportunity when offered unless you are garanteed another position elsewhere. There are very very few people that would turn this down.

This hiring was largely Quinn, Tambi, and Renny taking the time to consider people, make a list, do interviews and then make the decision. Given that this is an assistant coach, it is normal for the coach to have a lot of say in the hiring. Tough to do when Quinn only got here 2 months ago.

A guy on Lowetide said that Calagary's entire staff boasts a combined total of only 164 NHL games coached. I don't know if this is completely accurate but I'm pretty sure Quinn by himself has coached nearly 1400 games...

Robin Brownlee wrote:
Is that so? Nothing screams “I’m a nerd” like hatching one of these dorky name combinations.
Thanks Robin. You’ve inspired me to get more in touch with my inner nerd.
I now dub the assistant coaching tandem: Flemberger!

If things go south with this staff, that moniker could prove quite useful...

There is a writeup on Hockey Buzz. It's a fairly elaborate fantasy involving Kessel to Edmonton; thus convincing Heatley to finally waive his NMC, and then Horcoff would go to Montral for Plekanec....and so on...

First off you guys might be surprised by the quality of candidates that expressed interest in the Oilers Assistant Coach position.
Fleming is a suitable sort for this type of job, and is a good fit.
Kelly Buchberger meanwhile is getting the mentoring experience of a lifetime.
As an aside.
No disrespect to Mr. Willis, but five JW stories on the front page of ON is at least three and probably four too many.
Around July 1st there was some quality breking-coverage type stories getting done on ON.
Given that JW has his own site do we really need all five lead stories on the ON site coming from someone who has no direct access to anybody that matters in hockey circles? Combine that with the fact that Jon resides in Mortheastern B.C., it can be argued he doesn't really have a pulse for what is happening in Edmonton either.
I can see getting Jon's take once a week...but in this case I think less might be more.

A drive-by would be suggesting that guys like Willis or MC 79 shouldn't write at all on their sites.
I have never said that.
Some of Willis's and Mc79's stats-based arguments are quite interesting.
But currently ON's front page is seemingly devoted to Willis and that lacks range of opinion and any insight beyond the numbers.
Frankly the Oilers site would be lame if I was the only blogger on there as well.
Thanks for your thoughts Chris.
Where is Brownlee, Gregor, and Wayne Gretz?

No doubt! Anything from ON beats whatever the sanctioned site has to offer as far as entertaining articles go! The official site does not touch the controversial topics whatsoever, I need dirt/rumors/truth and emotion, that is why ON is my daily drug of choice, I can't live without it!

BTW shouldn’t former MSM type RB be digging up stories? After all, his days can’t be too busy since he isn’t employed.

Listen up, smart guy. You're going to come on here and take a dickish shot at me over something Stauffer wrote?
For your information, assuming you're interested in the facts, me not writing every day for ON has nothing to do with my willingness to dig up stories.

Under my agreement with ON, I can only write 10 items a month. That's what the website can afford right now. I have reached that limit for August. I'd happily write more and as the website grows I hope that'll be the case. Willis has a different agreement and I'm not going to talk about it here. It's not my business or yours.

As for your as*hole remark about me not being employed, I write for Canadian Press and Metro Edmonton and co-host Just A Game with Jason Gregor on Thursdays on top of posting here. I'm working four different gigs, so don't bring your weak sh*t around here.

Meh, you know how it is Bob, it's been weeks already since a player has said he does not want to be here, and even longer since a player has wanted out. There is not much to write about these days...(smile)

Another friggen coach, thats two more than we need. I've always felt in a lot of ways the players are over coached in todays NHL.I would have held off on Fleming and Buchberger. Whats wrong with having a couple guest coaches here for training camp, maybe a guy like Adam Oates could help for a month or six weeks and improve our faceoff success rate.

Another friggen coach, thats two more than we need. I’ve always felt in a lot of ways the players are over coached in todays NHL.I would have held off on Fleming and Buchberger. Whats wrong with having a couple guest coaches here for training camp, maybe a guy like Adam Oates could help for a month or six weeks and improve our faceoff success rate.
Who’s next…Steven Speilberg for the Oilers video coach.

Is it just the ads on the side of the web page that generate revenue to pay the writers for this site? Or how does it work? Does ON have hats and shirts, I for one would buy some, the logo is top notch and being a fequent visitor to the site makes me feel like I'm in a cult (in a good way!)

I don't even know who's thread this is but i usually come to ON to read what Robin has written first. If there's nothing new i'll try and stir the pot in other threads.Man! it's been a long difficult summer.

In a time when hockey news is somewhat dead or completely centered around Kane or Heatley (ungh), it's nice to have some variety of posts, even if it comes from the same source. So keep it up, JW. Not sure why there is an issue with the number of posts he is making on this site. If anything, that just means everyone else needs to step it up a notch. But as Robin Brownlee mentioned, contractually speaking that's probably not really possible.

Anyways to Bob Stauffer, your comments come off as a bit elitist and pompous (sorry if I took your posts out of context, but I got that from the comments regarding JW's lack of connections). I don't normally like to sound off on anyone, and really I'm not trying to be insulting, but I think that needs to be said. Really, whether he, you or anyone else are connected to the Oilers or not, the opinions can still be quite valuable. I've listened to your show back when it was on the TEAM, and you and other hosts can definitely stand to learn from some of the knowledge your callers have, just as you can share a lot of your insider information. In the hockey world, very few, if any, know it all. So I think even the lowly blogger can have some good insight. Just my 2 cents, and to steal your words above, "no disrespect meant".

I do get your point that having a whole s--- load of JW posts on the front page can be a bit much, but I hope that you're just implying that the other authors need to pick up the slack a bit ;)

I am assuming that the telent in the coaching pool will clean up a lot of the mess left behind from the last three years of disaster. This staff load should provide, and build a winning system! Regardless of the lack of changes due to cap space, go ahead and coach and mentor the s@#t out of the kids!!! :)